Random Thoughts

[Mako Koiwai]

because it'd simply open it up for the state to choose. California will never ban abortion, so it wouldn't impact us at all.

So why do places that sell CA legal medical marijuana here in LA get busted by the Feds?

[Jeff Shyu]

What's the point of the Court if there are no precedent decisions? How do you define legislating from the bench? Striking down a law that doesn't jibe with the constitution or precedent law? This isn't just about RvW.

the problem w/ RvW is that the precedent was a very broad-stroke approach to a rather focused incident.

RvW wasn't about abortion, it's about due process. IMO, making a decision on due process is completely within the realm of the supreme court's power, but to take it a step further and to make a decision on "when life begins" is overstepping.

[Jeff Shyu]

because it'd simply open it up for the state to choose. California will never ban abortion, so it wouldn't impact us at all.

So why do places that sell CA legal medical marijuana here in LA get busted by the Feds?

because federal law superceeds state.

overturning RvW does not make abortion ILLEGAL, it simply means now there's no-federal law governing this, which leave it up to the state to choose.

[John Coffey]

What's really amazing is that some are comparing Palin and Obama and Obama has fallen into that trap. Even more amazing is that some are acting as if Palin is running for President and discussing her qualifications for that office. What an absolutely brilliant move by McCain.

1. Obama is comparing his presidential qualifications to a vice-presidential candidate.
2. Joe who?
3. Palin makes McCain look more like the moderate he actually is.
4. The VP debate will actually be watched and no one, I mean no one, will care what Joe might say. He can't win, all he can do is lose.
5. McCain picks up more Hillary voters and a bunch more Hillary donors. McCain and the RNC are now equal to Obama and the DNC in money. McCain pulled $5M out of Chicago in a day!
6. Starting 8/29 the majority of the news cycles have been about the Republican candidates. This is the first time that's happened since May of this year.
7. Olberman and Mathews get booted off the MSNBC campaign anchor jobs.

Frickin' brilliant.

[Kevin Price]

That was certainly interesting. Any chance of my voting Republican went completely out the window when McCain picked his running mate.

Original article above.

Yeah, me too, and I was seriously on the fence. All this fuss about her looks and gender and charm have completely overrun the question of whether or not she's competent. And she doesn't have enough track record for anyone to say that she is.

[Jeff Shyu]

That was certainly interesting. Any chance of my voting Republican went completely out the window when McCain picked his running mate.

Original article above.

Yeah, me too, and I was seriously on the fence. All this fuss about his looks and gender(where the bbc code for strike through?) and charm have completely overrun the question of whether or not he's competent. And he doesn't have enough track record for anyone to say that he is.

quotted and modified for funnies

[John Coffey]

To add to my post above, even Paglia agrees that the Palin choice was a good one:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/200 ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

After that extravaganza, marking the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s epochal civil rights speech on the Washington Mall, I felt calmly confident that the Obama campaign was going to roll like a gorgeous juggernaut right over the puny, fossilized McCain. The next morning, it was as if the election were already over. No need to fret about American politics anymore this year. I had already turned with relief to other matters.

Pow! Wham! The Republicans unleashed a doozy -- one of the most stunning surprises that I have ever witnessed in my adult life. By lunchtime, Obama's triumph of the night before had been wiped right off the national radar screen. In a bold move I would never have thought him capable of, McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his pick for vice president. I had heard vaguely about Palin but had never heard her speak. I nearly fell out of my chair. It was like watching a boxing match or a quarter of hard-hitting football -- or one of the great light-saber duels in "Star Wars." (Here are the two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, going at it with Darth Maul in "The Phantom Menace.") This woman turned out to be a tough, scrappy fighter with a mischievous sense of humor.

Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.

Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics -- which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama's campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains. I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don't see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Paglia has never impressed me as anything but a tea-cozy feminist whose deepest thoughts were where the best Broadway after-party is.

[Michael Palero]

gender(where the bbc code for strike through?)

Aufaber doesn't want strikethrough.

[Jeff Shyu]

them goldsmiths are always trying to keep the little men down.

[John Coffey]

Paglia has never impressed me as anything but a tea-cozy feminist whose deepest thoughts were where the best Broadway after-party is.

Paglia is in the 90th percentile of the liberal media intelligentsia. One of the media elite as they say.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Paglia has never impressed me as anything but a tea-cozy feminist whose deepest thoughts were where the best Broadway after-party is.

Paglia is in the 90th percentile of the liberal media intelligentsia. One of the media elite as they say.

So's Lou Dobbs, although on the opposite end of the spectrum. Doesn't mean I think they offer anything.

[Larry Andrews]

Paglia has never impressed me as anything but a tea-cozy feminist whose deepest thoughts were where the best Broadway after-party is.

Paglia is in the 90th percentile of the liberal media intelligentsia. One of the media elite as they say.

Who's 'they', the conservative media? AM talk radio blowhards and their devoted marionettes? Please.

Camille is an interesting writer who's frequently published in Playboy because she writes accessibly for a lot of guys - her female audience is mostly a fairly small group of dedicated feminists. That she can leverage 'trendsbian' status to pay the bills falls into the 'good for her' bucket.

Why anyone would try to justify the queen of earmarks by saying Camille likes her is beyond me. Sorta like saying that Hilton hotels are better because Paris did such a great job on-camera. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

[John Coffey]

You missed the point. I'm not trying to convince anyone of the qualities of McCain's selection of VP and I know most of you won't believe me, but I'm actually undecided on whom I'm going to vote for. I prefer a post Boomer (like Obama) but McCain adding Palin (another post Boomer) makes the GOP ticket a little more interesting.

The point I'm trying to make in my posts above is that Palin a brilliant pick (much more so then Joe) as a campaign tactic and Paglia is a significant commentator on the left who agrees. This one move just put McCain ahead of Obama in every poll, although RCP has it as a statistical dead heat. We do live in interesting times.

[Art Rinner]

I agree that Palin was a good pick for McCain's campaign but a lousy pick for a VP.

For someone who says they put the country first before his campaign, he falls flat.

His recent slime tactics and his total reversal of ethics will backfire and his current blind support in the conservative media is waning, as more and more of the career journalists are disillusioned with his campaign tactics.

It is becoming plainly obvious that he is in a win at any cost mode, and I only expect him to slide further down that slope to total Rovian Slime.

[Kevin Price]

The point I'm trying to make in my posts above is that Palin a brilliant pick (much more so then Joe) as a campaign tactic

Very true. Either way, this will be an exciting campaign and a groundbreaking election.

[Jeff Shyu]

Rovian.. haha.. i've never heard of that before.

I wrote in the other thread, that i thought Palin was a brilliant pick by McCain. It's one of those chess moves that forces your opponent to have to rethink their game plan, and react to your move.

By all accounts, this election should have been in the democrat's pocket. all public opinion favors the democrats, yet, McCain is RIGHT THERE with Obama with only 2 months to go.

when was the last time a VP candidate was scrutinized with the same critical eye as Palin is now? When was the last time people flat out painted the death of the elected president, as a sway factor in deciding the ticket? Sure, he'd be the oldest president coming in, but in terms of physical health, he's in better shape than most. the last president to die in office due to medical problems was FDR, and i think we can all agree that McCain doesn't suffer from nearly the same level of problem FDR had. Current medical care are pushing longevity further and further. John adams, being president at the age of 61 back in 1797, was probably at much greater risk of health related death than McCain.

point is, Democrats are rattled. they're not resorting to "what if McCain dies" approach, rather than a straight up fight between the candidates, with the VP as their wingman.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Don't overestimate the post-convention bounce.

Jeff, cancer has a nasty habit of coming back. In most cases, re-metastisis kills very quickly, especially in the elderly. There have been plenty of times that VP candidates have been scrutinized: Tom Eagleton

[Larry Andrews]

point is, Democrats are rattled. they're not resorting to "what if McCain dies" approach, rather than a straight up fight between the candidates, with the VP as their wingman.

(assuming you didn't meant to write 'not' above)

I disagree. Virtually everything in the news is what the news chooses to present - all done in the attempt to gain ratings. Nobody reports on the meat-and-potatoes issues because Americans find them boring. VPILF in bikini with gun? Whole 'nother story.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

point is, Democrats are rattled. they're not resorting to "what if McCain dies" approach, rather than a straight up fight between the candidates, with the VP as their wingman.

(assuming you didn't meant to write 'not' above)

I disagree. Virtually everything in the news is what the news chooses to present - all done in the attempt to gain ratings. Nobody reports on the meat-and-potatoes issues because Americans find them boring. Chix in bikinis? Whole 'nother story.

Agreed. TV "journalism" hasn't been about substance in more than 40 years. As for Democrats being rattled, I'm not; I'm disgusted. McCain could have picked Kay Baily Hutchinson or from several other women in the GOP who are not nut cases.

[Kevin Price]

Democrats are rattled.

Of course they are- she's very difficult to attack: Woman, working mom, "family issues," pro-gun, Very Christian. Its enough to make a strategist's teeth turn around and start to eat his own brain.

Here's a thought: Whenever a candidate comes up for LA Superior Court judge, the LA County Bar reviews his or her credentials: years in practice, trial experience, law school, reputation in the legal community, ethics, etc. Candidates are objectively rated either "qualified," or "not qualified." I believe that if Palin were rated in this manner, she would be "not qualified" to be president. And let's face it, she could be president on day 2.

This candidate is remarkable because she is so utterly unqualified by any objective criteria. And yet, there she is.

[Mako Koiwai]

Right on Kevin!

[Jeff Shyu]

Democrats are rattled.

Of course they are- she's very difficult to attack: Woman, working mom, "family issues," pro-gun, Very Christian. Its enough to make a strategist's teeth turn around and start to eat his own brain.

Here's a thought: Whenever a candidate comes up for LA Superior Court judge, the LA County Bar reviews his or her credentials: years in practice, trial experience, law school, reputation in the legal community, ethics, etc. Candidates are objectively rated either "qualified," or "not qualified." I believe that if Palin were rated in this manner, she would be "not qualified" to be president. And let's face it, she could be president on day 2.

This candidate is remarkable because she is so utterly unqualified by any objective criteria. And yet, there she is.

which brings me back to my joke post.

what differentiates her experience from Obama?

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Democrats are rattled.

Of course they are- she's very difficult to attack: Woman, working mom, "family issues," pro-gun, Very Christian. Its enough to make a strategist's teeth turn around and start to eat his own brain.

Here's a thought: Whenever a candidate comes up for LA Superior Court judge, the LA County Bar reviews his or her credentials: years in practice, trial experience, law school, reputation in the legal community, ethics, etc. Candidates are objectively rated either "qualified," or "not qualified." I believe that if Palin were rated in this manner, she would be "not qualified" to be president. And let's face it, she could be president on day 2.

This candidate is remarkable because she is so utterly unqualified by any objective criteria. And yet, there she is.

which brings me back to my joke post.

what differentiates her experience from Obama?

Members of the Senate participate in the debate and formation of national policy and law making. The mayor of East Jesus, Anywhere does not. GOP derision of Obama's work as a community organizer is not only hypocritical, but demonstrates a complete and utter ignorance of what that means in impoverished urban areas. His record in the Illinois legislature and the Senate have been the objects of outright lies by the McCain campaign, including Ms. Palin's speech in St. Paul. Her record on earmarks makes criticizing anyone else's laughable. Her approach to governing isn't befitting the offices she's held, much less the second highest office in the land and president of the Senate. She's proven herself to be petty and vindictive. We've had enough of that the past eight years.

[John Coffey]

Bob, Palin was also a Governer since 2006. And regardless of which President or Vice-President we get, pettiness and vindictiveness will live on. Republicans don't have that market cornered. What's absolutely amazing is that people assume there will be significant changes in the status quo if their candidate is elected - based purely on campaign slogans. Does anyone really think we will have more money in our pockets, our kids will be smarter, the earth will be cooler, the air will be cleaner, and all religions will join hands and live in peace just because Obama or McCain get elected?

Watch and enjoy the election for what it is, a big political soap opera. Come 2009 we will all still be facing the same local problems while womever is in the White House starts planning for the 2012 election.